Chapter 37 Dangerously Healthy by Malcolm Birkenshaw

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Chapter 37.

Each day was sunny. We walked a bit, slept a bit, ate a bit,
slept a bit, swam a bit, slept a bit again until, happier and
healthier, I all but broke into a run after each swim. Yet during
every evening my legs became heavy. Was it the swimming or the sun,
perhaps all the sleeping, or even the wine? No. I drank very little
and, as for the food, we lived mainly on salads.

`By gum, tha holiday's done thee good,' Stan brought a bag of
coal my second day home. `Don't want thee catching tha death, what
with October being here, not after all that heat what you've had,'
he winked. `How did thee get on with tha,.. er, friend..?'

`Fine, thanks,' I ducked. Mind you, it was good to hear him
confirm that I looked as well as I felt, though I was still
wondering why my legs were so tired.

I forgot about them as they seemed to recover, Zena and I
seeing each other more and more as the days continued to shorten.
`What are you doing for Christmas?' she asked.

Now, there's the cut, I thought, mindful of Claire and John
having to shuffle themselves between parents. Two houses in the
pack, each decorated for Christmas, twice the presents, yet no
longer anywhere for them to call "This is my home". Prospects of
vacant faces at the dining table, Christmas through a looking glass,
I lived their desolation. My love a powerful love, a different
love, on top of which Zena was still equal-top love. Too few
minutes for so many loves.

`I'll spend Christmas day, first thing, at Adderton, then spend
the rest of the holiday with you, if that's OK?' I replied.

`Fine. That'll give me chance to clean up my house. I'll have
been kept busy at work right up to the last minute.'

The rookeries around Adderton rocked high, deserted, wrestling
in the winter wind as our Christmas dawn rang hollow. Claire and
John opened their presents before I delivered them to Lena's. `Have
a nice time, dad,' their smiles restrained once we neared within
sight of their mother's new house. What politics, what tensions
caused this?

`See you on Wednesday, enjoy yourselves,' I swallowed my
feelings, loathful of the chances I had missed whilst we were still
married. If only I had grabbed those opportunities perhaps today's
division of loyalties might have been avoided.

My thoughts continued, muted, as I drove onto Middlebeck,
churning over in my mind those memories of their last Christmas
before the divorce. Perhaps not, Lena had been planning dumping me
for a long time, there was probably nothing I could have done, I
brightened up, nearing Zena's. This Christmas we were going to her
brother's for lunch.

`Wine?'

`Yes, please,' I said, then whispered to Zena, `It's red.'

`Didn't I see you having some red at the Writers' Christmas
party?'

I nodded, guiltily.

`Doesn't it agree with you?'

`Well, sometimes, in small quantities, I think, so after that
party I'll have had enough for the moment.'

`Drink what you can,' her eyes whispered back, reproaching me
mildly, her lips adding quietly, `I'll finish the rest when nobody's
looking.'

Next day would have started under a conglomerate of
melancholy’s had I been dwelling upon lost Christmases past. But not
now, not today, not when I was waking up with Zena in my arms,
despite the grey daylight which was rising grudgingly into a Boxing
Day sky. We remained embraced, ignoring that by me staying in bed
my walking would become worse. Still, it was Christmas.... Well,
`Stay where you are,' Zena said when she saw me starting to move.
`I'll bring you a cup of tea. You can go for a walk later, after
you've been to your friends.'

I was easily persuaded as she loosely knotted her white kimono
dressing gown and hurried downstairs, leaving me to lie back,
resting. The room was so spotless that I mused it had never been
seen by a spider, at least not since she had lived here, my eyes
enjoying her dressing table with its orderly scattering of makeup,
and tissues, and...

`I've brought your things,' she returned with the tea and
counted my tablets, my free arm holding her nearer until, the tea
having gone cold, she broke free and began to get ready. This
lunchtime we were going our various ways, visiting friends, happy
that tonight we would be back together again.

`Zena, I feel much better now, since taking those multivitamin
tablets.'

She turned her head, with hair dryer still blowing, and looked
through her elbow. `That's good,' she smiled.

`On the other hand, it might be just a placebo effect or,
better still, the consequence of spending a long night with you,' I
snuggled closer, my hands at rest on her shoulders. `Headlines,
miracle cure,' I proclaimed, leaning forward until our cheeks were
together, my mouth close to her ear, before whispering, `To heck
with other sufferers, I'm not sharing you with anyone else.'

What a bore, getting dressed, even though setting off in
opposite directions to see our respective friends would be a happy
event, like really being married, certain that this evening we would
be together again.

Following my lunch at the Eastdrakes I went for a walk. It was
a good walk; good for my M.S., and "good for the digestion" as my
father would say, though the unseasonable appearance of warm sunlight
left me with a sensation of being tired.

`You're not going so soon?' their children pleaded when I got
back, having been waiting for my return, board games at the ready,
expecting me to stay late as usual.

`No, not immediately, but before it gets dark. Remember, I'm
cycling.'

`Stay longer, much longer, Peter will run you home.'

`He can't, he's also had a drink, it's not worth the risk,' I
shook my head. `That's why I'm using my bike,.... it's not just to
save money,' I said nothing about beginning to feel off-colour.
Probably that walk to blame, I thought, expecting that a rest at
Zena's would soon put it right. `All right, I'll stay a bit longer.'

`Right, right. Which do you want, there's just the top hat
or iron left.'

`Tim's already thrown double four, so you've got eight to
beat,...'

`Double four to beat.'

`... although if you get a double four you can have a second
attempt.'

`He can't.'

`He can.'

`Who's got the rules?'

I was doing pretty well before landing on Park Lane with
Claire’s hotels upon it. `That's me bankrupt. Anyway, it's time I got
going.'

`No.'

`Stay a bit longer.'

`We haven't tried our new game, yet.'

`No, really, thanks, next week, perhaps. I don't want to be
cycling in the dark when the pubs are coming out.'

`Cheerio.' Five heads in the doorway, lights on their Christmas
tree twinkling in the hall.

`Bye.'

`See you soon,' five arms waving goodbye.

Later, much later, my condition had deteriorated, by then I had
cycled to Zena's. `Have some natural yoghurt, full of helpful
bacteria,' she offered, opening her refrigerator, adding, when she
saw doubt in my face, `It's very-low fat.'

After eating the yoghurt I began to feel even worse. This time
it was just like M.S. `I think it would be safer for me to go home,
for more tablets and oxygen.'

`Go home? What have you been eating today?'

`Nothing, nothing harmful.'

`Yesterday you only had a sip of red wine.... What was that
sweet you had at the Writers' party?'

`Cheesecake.'

`Chocolate cheesecake! You've only yourself to blame,' she
despaired.

Back home my condition became even worse, and worse and worse
overnight. Probably a virus instead of M.S., I hoped. Yet perhaps
it was both? Better call the doctor before things end up serious.

`What are you doing on the floor?' he worried, alarmed, when he
let himself in through the door.

`Resting,' I lied, tongue in ill cheek. `I'm too exhausted to
do any exercises!'

He ignored my bravura, carried out an examination, agreed with
my diagnosis. Perhaps it was both M.S. and an infection. `Keep
resting. I'll leave a supply of anti-biotics.'

My condition soon stabilised after taking his tablets, then
rapidly improved, especially when I bought some different vitamin
tablets. But he who heals first often heals last: two days later
the cure was reversed and my recovery became a collapse.

`This is ridiculous,' I swore the room was shrinking as I
tussled with my condition until, ending up virtually paralysed, I
was unable to crawl, had to sleep on the floor, too weak to even
work my oxygen supply. By the end of the week I was obviously
gravely ill. Better not call out the doctor again, not at this hour.
What is it that I have been taking? “PENBRITEN” it says on the
label. Surely That's not the antibiotic which put me in hospital
thirty years ago?

`It's a synthetic penicillin,' my doctor said, when he answered
his telephone, not too pleased at me waiting until New Year's Eve
before having to find out.

`No wonder I feel awful, I'm violently allergic to penicillin.'

`You didn't say that when I visited you,' he snapped, knowing
that I knew enough to know better. `I'll leave a different
prescription at the surgery for someone to pick up after eleven
o'clock.'

It took over an hour for John to find someone apparently sober
who could drive to Arkston Bash for my tablets. And yet it seemed
that hour upon hour was passing, all the time my room getting
smaller, paradoxically the furniture receding beyond reach, death
tightened its grip. Hurry up, hurry up, please hurry up.

Finally, when the tablets arrived in a pill box, in a
prescription bag, in the slow hands of a neighbour all hale and
hearty, I thought he might be too late. My head was swirling and
swirling, almost out of control, `If they don't work quickly I'll
even have those bloody steroid injections, anything the doctor
insists.'

But within minutes of me taking a double dose of these
different antibiotics the claws of death began to loosen their grip
and, though still poorly and exhausted, my mind was now at ease to
sink into sleep.

During the night my improvement must have continued because,
with this reaction to penicillin out of the way, within days my M.S.
was defeated. Mind you, this time my recovery was accelerated by me
taking evening primrose oil capsules, as well as a revised regime of
vitamin tablets, plus the rest of my diet being totally fat-free.

Zena, shattered by seeing my illness, started with a similar
dose of influenza. Was it my bug? No, it couldn't be, for in the
end I had probably been suffering from an attack of M.S., brought on
by me eating that chocolate cheesecake at the party. Then things
had been made worse, very much worse, by me taking those Penbriten
tablets, so maybe I never had flu in the first place. But Zena was
certainly ill, and perhaps it was an illness exacerbated by her
worrying about me.

She was confined to bed, deteriorating whilst I was
recovering - even though winter had struck. To hell with the rooks,
let them scatter for food, my new tablets had certainly worked. In
fact I was able to travel by train through the deep drifts of snow
to Middlebeck to see her before another week had escaped.

Poor Zena, her flu was in full flow, still keeping her off
work. Were my tablets really the reason why I had got better? Was
it only the cheesecake which caused my illness? Could I have thrown
off the M.S. even quicker had I been treated with oxygen in Walt
Khitley's diving chamber?

Read the following chapters that tell of how Martin "cured" his M.S. and climbed mountains by the following year.

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